Prosociality and Altruism in the Context of Aging: An Experimental Study Comparing the Monetary Domain to the Domain of Time

Prosocial behavior is an inclusive term that comprises different types of actions aimed to engender welfare in others. Over the years, many researchers have worked to find a universal definition of prosocial behavior but the lack of consensus between them created disagreement on this topic. This made it very complex to study this phenomenon in all fields (Beilin, 2013). It has been studied especially when applied to children and adults (e.g., see Eisenberg & Mussen, 1989). The topic of prosocial behavior in aging, instead, has not been fully explored. When talking about prosocial behavior, we can highlight two main domains to which we apply these behaviors: the monetary and the non-monetary domains. Studies have shown that elderly individuals seem to be more altruist in the monetary domain when they are asked to make some monetary donations. In the non-monetary domain, instead, results remain unclear and contrasting (Andreoni, 2006; Bailey et al., 2013; Hubbard et al., 2016; Midlarsky & Hannah, 1989). Given this extended gap in scientific literature, in this present study, we aimed to analyze these two domains of prosocial behavior applied to the field of aging. We compared the monetary to the non-monetary domains. In particular, we focused on the two realms of time and money. We recruited 178 participants aged 65 and older. We recruited healthy participants with no sign of neurological disorder or degeneration. We used four different experimental conditions to which the participants were randomly assigned. The study consisted in a 1-hour online meeting which was divided in two parts. In the first part, the experimenter and the participant engaged in a one-on-one meeting in which the subject completed a demographic questionnaire and had to perform some cognitive tests. In the second part, the subject had a brief conversation with a fictitious participant. At the end of the conversation, participants were presented a prosocial task to complete. This prosocial task was randomly assigned according to their experimental condition, choosing between a task with time or task with money. The prosocial task consisted in a list of questionnaires and the subject’s duty was to decide the amount of money or time they wanted to divide between them and the fictious participant. Lastly, the participants had to fill out a list of questionnaires aimed to evaluate the bond created between them and the fictious participant, agreeableness traits, altruism predispositions, empathy levels, and their perception of trustworthiness of the fictious participant. In this study, elderlies showed to engage in a more prosocial manner in the domain of money rather than that of time, donating more money resources to individuals perceived as needing money rather than those who did not need it. This result is very important from an application point of view in everyday life as it allows us to better understand the dark side of the increase of prosociality in aging. Prosociality in aging is usually associated with a number of benefits for physical health, cognitive functions, psychosocial abilities, functional capacities, and well-being. However, excessive levels of generosity and trust could make elderlies more likely to be abused, above all from an economic point of view.